-Ed Snider doesn't really get sold on 'the future.' He wants to win the Cup now, since he doesn't really have that much of a future to wait for. If the Kings win the Cup this season, he'll take June 23, 2011 to his grave.

-Because of that, so many people are always sold on the Flyers being able to win the Cup every year, going into the season. Many people felt that the simple removal of Carter and Richards opened the door to be able to do that (despite people ignoring how close they came 12 months before the trade). The reaction of those people will be interesting to watch try to spin about "they weren't going to do it here" and whathaveyou, but even they were still good trades to make, people would have to accept (or be in denial of) a massive, egregious, gross miscalcuation about the potential of the team's fortunes on June 20, 2011.

People have and will continue to say they love all the players we got in the trades, but are lying to themselves if they wouldn't not do/undo the trades to ensure we win the Cup this season.

Of course we would all undo the trade if it ensured the Cup for 2012, but that is just some hypothetical. We dont know if this team would still be playing had those trades had not happened just as well if we dont know what would have happened had Pronger not been hurt. What's done is done, we will never know what the result would have been without out those trades.

It's hard to gauge these trades because we still do not know the full story behind them.

From a purely hockey perspective, I think the Flyers would have been best off if they made the Carter deal and kept Richards, but there may have been more going on behind the scenes. If there really was a locker room rift with Richards, and the organization felt it was going to continue or get worse after trading Carter, then both of these trades were necessary. If the locker room stuff was all just a product of the media and Richards would have carried on being the player he has been, then they should have kept him IMO.

We may never know the full story, but I still think for an organization to trade both of their franchise centermen on the same day, something behind the scenes had to have been wrong.

You honestly think Richards and Carter would've been the difference? The Kings have JONATHON QUICK. We have Ilya Bryzgalov. The Kings' defense is better than ours. Just because Richards and Carter happen to be on the team doesn't make them the difference-makers.

I still can't fathom how you could think if you plot Richards and Carter (which, obviously, we couldn't fit under the cap) on the team we'd all of a sudden be a Cup-winning team. The fact is, our weak points are defense and goaltending, neither of which #18 or #17 would've helped with.

Quick >>>>>> Bryz

Quick = Cup

Bryz = ????

Richards is a nice piece for LA, Simmonds and Schenn are nice pieces for the Flyers. Richards is the 4th or 5th most important piece in LA, with the Flyers he was the pivot, or the dueling pivot with Pronger. The Flyers chose Pronger and lost some there because CP blew out an engine and is probably done forever.

Holmgren tied that trade I think.

The epic screwing that Holmgren gave CBJ would get most GM's fired in a more non forgiving environment than Columbus. Carter was horribly suited to CBJ. LA is perfect for him. He will be a 40 goal scorer there but there will always be something missing... but that something may not be the Cup because LA looks like they are the favorites now.

Richards is a nice piece for LA, Simmonds and Schenn are nice pieces for the Flyers. Richards is the 4th or 5th most important piece in LA, with the Flyers he was the pivot, or the dueling pivot with Pronger. The Flyers chose Pronger and lost some there because CP blew out an engine and is probably done forever.

Holmgren tied that trade I think.

The epic screwing that Holmgren gave CBJ would get most GM's fired in a more non forgiving environment than Columbus. Carter was horribly suited to CBJ. LA is perfect for him. He will be a 40 goal scorer there but there will always be something missing... but that something may not be the Cup because LA looks like they are the favorites now.

To say Richards is the 4th or 5th most important piece isn't necessarily true. He was the second best player up till his concussion behind Quick. Kopitar and Brown weren't playing well, nor was Doughty. Lombardi made all the right moves and balanced out every line. Quick hasn't had to steal a game this series but he sure is nice to have in case there is a defensive breakdown up front.

As for Carter, he doesn't need to score 40 in LA. Nobody does. They are a defence first team and you just need to look at the games in the playoffs, 12 games, 3 shutouts, 1 goal per game needed to win those games. That's 1/4 of their games right there. He and every other player on that team is a two way player and as long as they keep playing like that, scoring a ton of goals isn't important.

You honestly think Richards and Carter would've been the difference? The Kings have JONATHON QUICK. We have Ilya Bryzgalov. The Kings' defense is better than ours. Just because Richards and Carter happen to be on the team doesn't make them the difference-makers.

I still can't fathom how you could think if you plot Richards and Carter (which, obviously, we couldn't fit under the cap) on the team we'd all of a sudden be a Cup-winning team. The fact is, our weak points are defense and goaltending, neither of which #18 or #17 would've helped with.

Our problem is team defense, not necessarily just the 6 dmen we dress. Regardless of what you may think of them, Richards and Carter are above-average defensively. Our best defensive forward this year was Sean Couturier. That's a huge problem in the grand scheme of things.

I like the Carter trade (I was never that big of a fan of his). The Richards trade was a hard to take. I think we should be ok in the long run, but since the trades set us back a couple of years, it could be disastrous given how old Timonen/Pronger/Briere are getting. I'm guessing that Holmgren's gonna go after Suter/Weber hard and then we'll see if that shores everything up. Who knows. One thing's for sure -- the Flyers are usually offseason champions.

Our problem is team defense, not necessarily just the 6 dmen we dress. Regardless of what you may think of them, Richards and Carter are above-average defensively. Our best defensive forward this year was Sean Couturier. That's a huge problem in the grand scheme of things.

I like the Carter trade (I was never that big of a fan of his). The Richards trade was a hard to take. I think we should be ok in the long run, but since the trades set us back a couple of years, it could be disastrous given how old Timonen/Pronger/Briere are getting. I'm guessing that Holmgren's gonna go after Suter/Weber hard and then we'll see if that shores everything up. Who knows. One thing's for sure -- the Flyers are usually offseason champions.

I'm not discrediting their defensive abilities (although I do feel Carter's was always very overstated), but it ultimately does come down to the 6 defensemen. Simply put, we weren't winning a damn thing with those defensemen, regardless of how defensively-minded our forwards were.

You honestly think Richards and Carter would've been the difference? The Kings have JONATHON QUICK. We have Ilya Bryzgalov. The Kings' defense is better than ours. Just because Richards and Carter happen to be on the team doesn't make them the difference-makers.

I still can't fathom how you could think if you plot Richards and Carter (which, obviously, we couldn't fit under the cap) on the team we'd all of a sudden be a Cup-winning team. The fact is, our weak points are defense and goaltending, neither of which #18 or #17 would've helped with.

If you don't think Mike Richards would not have made a major difference to the defensive play of the Flyers, then you're watching a different game than I. And paying some 6 million dollars for a goal-tender thru the Carter trade, should have made Bryzgalov at least as good as Quick. Assuming the Flyers kept Richards (but traded Carter), what would the projections have been with Giroux, Briere, Hartnell, Couturier, JVR, Read, Vorachek (and likely Jagr and Talbot) at forward and Brzgalov in goal- think about it.

I still can't fathom how you could think if you plot Richards and Carter (which, obviously, we couldn't fit under the cap) on the team we'd all of a sudden be a Cup-winning team. The fact is, our weak points are defense and goaltending, neither of which #18 or #17 would've helped with.

Huh, he never even suggested plotting Richards and Carter in would make us a Cup winning team

Please people stop acting like we would've made it farther with Richards and Carter. There's many different reasons The Kings are where they are and The Flyers are not. Richards and Carter are a part of it but there's other things they have and we don't. #1 we don't have Quick, #2 we don't have Doughty, #3 they were a good defensive team all year The Flyers were not. Their team is great for playoffs they have 2 yearly selke candidates as the top 2 centers, the best goalie, and solid team defense. The Kings are winning The Cup!

The fact is, our weak points are defense and goaltending, neither of which #18 or #17 would've helped with.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, and if you talk to Kings fans, they all say Richards has only been the 3rd best player on the team, behind Quick and Brown. He's been a passenger riding on their coat tails

I agree with this wholeheartedly, and if you talk to Kings fans, they all say Richards has only been the 3rd best player on the team, behind Quick and Brown. He's been a passenger riding on their coat tails

I'm not sure how being the 3rd best player on a team equates to being a passenger. Would you expect to win a Cup with contributions from only 2 guys?

I agree with this wholeheartedly, and if you talk to Kings fans, they all say Richards has only been the 3rd best player on the team, behind Quick and Brown. He's been a passenger riding on their coat tails

You clearly haven't been actually watching the games, then. Richards is no passenger on that team.

Richards is a great player, who is well rounded I would love him to still be in Orange but that's not the case here he is gone, so is Carter they are set up to win a cup this year, I really didn't want to see them win a cup but in retrospect I don't care, playing devils advocate you could say the pressure in LA is nothing compared to Philly, Quick is leaps and bounds better than Bryz, Richie and Carter do not have the pressure on them in LA compared to Philly not by a long shot, regardless it would have been amazing if they won it here but again it's not the case, I wish them well but going through the what ifs, and knowing the reality is neither of them are on the Flyers so I could care less, looking forward to the off season and next year

Richards is a great player, who is well rounded I would love him to still be in Orange but that's not the case here he is gone, so is Carter they are set up to win a cup this year, I really didn't want to see them win a cup but in retrospect I don't care, playing devils advocate you could say the pressure in LA is nothing compared to Philly, Quick is leaps and bounds better than Bryz, Richie and Carter do not have the pressure on them in LA compared to Philly not by a long shot, regardless it would have been amazing if they won it here but again it's not the case, I wish them well but going through the what ifs, and knowing the reality is neither of them are on the Flyers so I could care less, looking forward to the off season and next year

No matter how much better Quick's season has been than Bryz', Quick isn't leaps and bounds better than the Bryz that played against NJ. They didn't get knocked out because of the goalie, it was because they were dominated in all other areas. There's less pressure in LA, but Richards didn't exactly shrink from pressure in Philly either. He just didn't like answering questions.

You honestly think Richards and Carter would've been the difference? The Kings have JONATHON QUICK. We have Ilya Bryzgalov. The Kings' defense is better than ours. Just because Richards and Carter happen to be on the team doesn't make them the difference-makers.

I still can't fathom how you could think if you plot Richards and Carter (which, obviously, we couldn't fit under the cap) on the team we'd all of a sudden be a Cup-winning team. The fact is, our weak points are defense and goaltending, neither of which #18 or #17 would've helped with.

They were 2 wins from the Cup 2 years ago with worse defense and a worse goaltender. They absolutely would have had a better chance to win the Cup with at least Richards, if not both, than they did this year.

Why have has Quick supposedly been the difference maker? Because all the guys in front of him own the puck. 5 of the 6 defensemen were the same unit that played in last year's playoffs. Two of them were our best puck-possession centers last season. Which is one reason the defensemen have been scapegoated, they don't have the same level of defense from the forwards in front of them. Briere and JVR were floaters, Schenn and Simmonds struggled, Jagr was still old. Lack of defense from the forwards is as big of a reason why we were in so many 5-4 games during the year. Which is expected when you trade away your two best defensive forwards.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Justified

You would think so but this team was pretty terrible defensively last year from about January on.

That's because the effects of the previous season caught up. Look up the results of the last 30 or so teams who lost in the Cup Final the previous year.

They were 2 wins from the Cup 2 years ago with worse defense and a worse goaltender. They absolutely would have had a better chance to win the Cup with at least Richards, if not both, than they did this year.

Why have has Quick supposedly been the difference maker? Because all the guys in front of him own the puck. 5 of the 6 defensemen were the same unit that played in last year's playoffs. Two of them were our best puck-possession centers last season. Which is one reason the defensemen have been scapegoated, they don't have the same level of defense from the forwards in front of them. Briere and JVR were floaters, Schenn and Simmonds struggled, Jagr was still old. Lack of defense from the forwards is as big of a reason why we were in so many 5-4 games during the year. Which is expected when you trade away your two best defensive forwards.

That's because the effects of the previous season caught up. Look up the results of the last 30 or so teams who lost in the Cup Final the previous year.

Not sure if serious. Do you really think Richards and Carter would have made a difference in this series with this defense and who's injured on it?

Not sure if serious. Do you really think Richards and Carter would have made a difference in this series with this defense and who's injured on it?

I do, most definitely. Because the forwards were part of the problem, not just the defensemen. I don't know if I'd go as far as GKJ and say 2010's defense was worse though. This year we had a competent 3rd pairing but I'd still probably take 2010's blue line with a healthy Pronger and slightly younger Kimmo.

Not sure if serious. Do you really think Richards and Carter would have made a difference in this series with this defense and who's injured on it?

Carter made a big difference on Roo's line last year because he covered a lot of Roo's defensive problems. Replace him with Jagr who is slow and doesn't know the meaning of the word backcheck and yeah, he would have made a difference. Richards would have also been centering a line and obviously his defence is better than any other Flyer forward.